News

Two teams of Concordia University Chicago undergraduate students have finished second and third place in Chicago, and second and fourth place in Illinois in the IEEEXtreme 24-Hour Programming Competition. The students’ performance in the annual Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) contest placed them 52nd in the U.S., an improvement of 51 positions over last year. They finished 661st in the world out of about 2,200 teams. The competition is a global challenge where computer science and engineering students at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels compete against each other in an intense 24-hour period to solve a set of programming problems.

Older adults who frequently attended live performances of a concert, play or musical showed slower cognitive decline compared to those who never attended any performing arts, according to a study by Dr. Rekha S. Rajan, visiting associate professor of research at Concordia University Chicago. The study was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Kumar Bharat Rajan, associate professor of internal medicine at Rush University Medical Center, and is funded by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant through 2017. The results will be published in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Aging and Health.

Concordia University Chicago will bring together international researchers and scholars with expertise in aging, religion and spirituality, as well as practitioners, policy-makers, clergy, laypeople and care partners to explore how aging presents us with opportunities to navigate transitions over the life course. The International Conference on Ageing and Spirituality (ICAS) will take place June 4-7, 2017. Registration opens Dec. 1 at www.7thinternationalconference.org.

The Ferguson Art Gallery at Concordia University Chicago presents a new exhibition, “The Best of Both Worlds: Graphic Design Meets Fine Art,” running Nov. 21 to Dec. 27. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

The Collective, the theater production company of Concordia University Chicago, in association with Chicago Dramatists, presents “The Death and Life of John Smith” by Will Dunne. The play, directed by Rachel Edwards Harvith, will run Nov. 11, 12, 18 and 19 at 7:30 p.m., and Nov. 13 and 20 at 2 p.m. at the Madison Street Theatre, 1010 Madison St., Oak Park, IL.

The ESL (English as a second language) faculty, within the Department of Teaching, Learning & Diversity at Concordia University Chicago, has received national recognition from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). The department, led by Dr. Carolyn Theard-Griggs, associate professor of curriculum and instruction, demonstrated that it meets the standards set by CAEP as well as TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages), the academic organization responsible for setting standards for the ESL discipline.

Early Childhood Education graduates in both the teacher-licensure and non-licensure track at Concordia University Chicago have been granted eligibility for the Illinois Gateways to Opportunity credentials. The credentials open doors for graduates who do not pursue teacher licensure to have careers in federal and state-funded early childhood education centers.